Pivotal Development

By DAVID EVERITT

Published: February 25, 2007

FOR better or worse, Levittown has come to be a powerful symbol of Long Island life. Some people look nostalgically upon the town's early days as a time when young families could make a new start in a home of their own. Others regard Levittown with derision as a stereotype of suburban conformity.

Both sides would probably agree on one thing: the community holds an important place in the development of the American suburban experience. Shedding some light on the origin of that experience is a new exhibition at the Long Island Museum of Art, History and Carriages that marks the 60th anniversary of the town's founding.

Titled ''Living the American Dream: Levittown and the Suburban Boom,'' the show, running through July 8, begins with some history of the development of Long Island from the 19th century through World War II, then chronicles the efforts of William J. Levitt, a man described by the museum's curator, Joshua Ruff, as ''just as important as Robert Moses as far as what Long Island became.'' With his brother Alfred, Levitt devised a streamlined, assembly-line-inspired process for building houses quickly and cheaply, and in 1947 began mass-producing the first of more than 17,000 homes that would become the template for a new style of living in post-World War II America.

At the time, critics called the structures shoddy and predicted the community would soon become a slum. In fact, ''those houses were incredibly well built,'' according to Rosalyn Baxandall, a professor at the State University of New York College at Old Westbury who is co-author with Elizabeth Ewen of ''Picture Windows,'' a social history of suburbia. ''They have been copied all over the world.''

To tell the story of this early outpost on the suburban frontier, the museum presents an array of artifacts, from architectural plans for the town's two models of homes to a vintage lawn mower and an early Levittown Little League uniform. Details of the town's early life are also documented with historical photos and films, among them a shot from the late 1940s showing prospective homeowners sleeping in canvas chairs and hammocks while waiting in line overnight to buy the first Levittown homes to go on sale.

Among the visual highlights of the exhibition are life-size reproductions of the kitchen and living room from a Levittown ranch, complete with an original kitchen sink, refrigerator and Bendix washing machine (on loan from the Levittown Historical Society) as well as a fabricated Admiral television set built into a panel beneath the living-room staircase.

Part of the exhibition deals with the controversy that has always surrounded the town. ''People have been battling over what Levittown means ever since it was created,'' said Mr. Ruff, the curator. On a positive note, Levittown provided homes that thousands of city dwellers who were facing a severe housing shortage could afford. The exhibition illustrates this phenomenon with uniforms of World War II veterans and advertisements promoting the sort of new homes returning servicemen could expect to find in Levitt's freshly minted development.

''It was the American dream for a lot of people who had been living within four walls in small apartments in Brooklyn and Queens,'' Mr. Ruff said. For many, however, ''it was the American dream denied,'' he added. As a highlighted clause in a display of an original leasing contract makes clear, the new town excluded ''any person other than members of the Caucasian race.''

Countering the enthusiasm of many of the original residents were critics who lambasted the community, as represented in the exhibition by a copy of the book ''The Crack in the Picture Window,'' by John Keats, a scathing 1957 study of Levittown-style conformity. The social commentator Lewis Mumford was among those who deplored the ''multitude of uniform, unidentifiable houses, lined up inflexibly.''

Ms. Baxandall has a different point of view. ''Those houses all looked the same in the beginning, but people remodeled them over the years,'' she said. ''At one point the Smithsonian wanted to put an original Levitt house in their museum, but they couldn't find one. They all had been changed.''

A different criticism has focused on Levittown's role in the overdevelopment of Long Island, depicted here in a recent photo of a traffic jam on Hempstead Turnpike. After the successful Levitt experiment inspired the construction of similar communities across the Island, Mr. Ruff said, it led to ''the loss of farmland and much of the natural landscape, as well as the emergence of the automobile and its impact."

While acknowledging these problems, the exhibition attempts to strike a balance with the positive aspects of the Levittown legacy.

''We approach the subject from a number of different angles,'' Mr. Ruff said, ''and bring back the personal connections people have to the place.'' Underscoring this attachment is a ceramic dish fashioned by an original Levittown resident inscribed with the words ''Bless Mister Levitt,'' as well as video interviews with homeowners reminiscing about their lives in the town.

In her study of the subject, Ms. Baxandall found that these connections stemmed not only from the opportunity that Levitt provided but also from the efforts of residents themselves, especially the women.

''They helped with child care with one another, they fought to start a library and schools,'' Ms. Baxandall said. ''It wasn't a community at first, but they made it a community.''

''Living the American Dream: Levittown and the Suburban Boom'' runs through July 8 at the Long Island Museum of Art, History and Carriages, 1200 Route 25A, Stony Brook. Information is available at www.longislandmuseum.org or by calling (631) 751-0066.

Photos: SUBURBAN STYLE -- Counterclockwise from left: A General Electric advertisement promoting home buying, War Bonds and appliances is part of ''Living the American Dream: Levittown and the Suburban Boom,'' as is information about racial discrimination in early Levittown. Recreations of a Levittown kitchen and living room are featured, as are old photographs. Patrick Vaughan, a Levittown resident, visited with his children, Victoria, 11, and Patrick, 9. (Photo by Barton Silverman/The New York Times)